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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, b}' the 

Standard' Life Insdrance Company, in the Clerk 1 s 

Office of the District Court of the United States, 

for the Southern District of New York. 



E. J. Pkck, Printer, 65 Liberty St., N. Y. 








•0' 



^ /^kH ! has the doctor come yet? So moaned 
out a feverish invalid, waking up from 
a brief, uneasy sleep, or rather delirium, 
in which he had been groaning and tossing rest- 
lessly from side to side of his bed, like some 
wild animal dashing himself against the bars of 
his cage. 

v * The doctor," said his pale wife, coming from 
the window, where she had gone to weep unobserv- 
ed, " why, it is only half an hour since he was 
here and told you he would not be back for three 
hours. What can I do for you ? " 

%k Slept only half an hour ! It seemed like two 
days. I had such dreams. I saw spectres worse 
than Dante's Inferno." 

" What were they like ? >v 

"Oh, I was walking among large handsome 
buildings, when suddenly their fronts fell off and 
left the timbers exposed. And on every timber, 
from the ground to the roof, were crowed hideous 
negroes, staring and leering and grimacing at me 
as they hung thickly upon the beams, twisting 
themselves over one another's heads to climb up 



higher to some vacant notch, where they could 
better rivet their great glaring eyes on me. They 
looked like devils incarnate, with a family likeness. 

" Then I was in a great gallery of paintings of 
the old masters. Noble, grey-haired men and wo- 
man looked down upon me out of their frames. 
But when I turned my eyes away, the portraits 
changed to sneering, malicious faces, whose eyes 
followed me with a mocking, ghastly smile. If I 
turned and fixed upon them a steady gaze I could 
bring back the original face. But when I again 
passed on, back the impish satanic leer would 
come, till I saw by side glances that the whole gal- 
lery was so, except just the one face I had before 
my eyes. And all those faces looked alike. 

" Poor, dear husband," exclaimed his wife, grasp- 
ing his hand. " It is your fever. Don't think 
about those things any more." 

" Oh ! I knew they were dreams. Next, I was 
in a large theatre, floored over for a hall, and the 
floor was filled with men standing halt-turning, 
crouching, stooping, bending, all immovable and 
all looking fixedly at me with a solemn, warning 
look. As I watched them, they all suddenly 
changed to different figures in new attitudes, but 
occupying the same place as before, and still keep- 
ing their eyes fixed upon me. And so again and 
again did they change, instantaneously, without a 



THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 



figure having moved ironi the spot where he stood, 
or taking his steady gaze one moment from my 
face. And in the features of all there was a terri- 
ble similarity, suggesting some person whom I can- 
not recall — unless it be but no matter." 

The wife was shocked by these fearful images of 
a distorted fancy. " Here," she said, " let me turn 
your pillow and bathe your forehead. Take some 
of these soothing drops, and try to sleep and think 
of pleasanter things." 

Still the sick man continued : " Then I saw a 
frozen human body floating on an icy desert sea ; 
where all was so bleak and dreary and still, that 
even the wind and the air seemed frozen, and the 
sky looked a dull, chill grey, and the only moving 
thing was the dead body, rocked on its icy bed. 
And so I watched this frozen corpse to see if it 
were mine, for a long day and night. Night or day 
made little difference in that awful scene. That 
vision haunts me "yet. For I thought that man 
had lived a selfish life, and he had let his heart 
grow so cold that he was to be frozen, body and 
soul, forever and forever, — frozen — forever — and 
forever — frozen. 

" I will sit by you, George," said his loving wife, 
" and hold your hand in mine, and then, perhaps, 
you can rest more quietly. The doctor says you 
must sleep." 



THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 



Soon again the sufferer slept, but it was still in a 
troubled, uneasy way. His faithful nurse sat by 
.him and sought to soothe his slumbers by every de- 
vice her love could suggest, but in vain. Still he 
tossed restlessly to and fro, muttering words, among 
which his wife distinguished sometimes her own 
name, and sometimes that of the children, and 
oace the words, " My poor wife — poor Willie and 
Ella!" pronounced in such a sorrowful, self-re- 
proachful tone, and accompanied with such groans 
of agony that she felt compelled to arouse him 
from his slumbers. 

When the doctor came he was alarmed at the de- 
lirious state of his patient. He had expected to 
find him more quiet from the powerful opiates he 
had left. The increasing delirium was a dangerous 
sympton. He said : 

4i You must keep him quiet, send the children 
away to your friends, close the blinds, deaden the 
noise on the pavements in front with straw, keep 
ice on his head and double the dose of drops. I 
shall be back in two hours." 

The wife followed the doctor out of the room and 
asked him tremblingly his real opinion of her hus- 
band's condition. He hesitated a moment and said : 

" While there is life there is hope. I do not like 
the continued high fever. Your presence, strange to 
say, excites him. You had best not remain in the 



THE SHADOW IN THE YALLEY. 



room. He appears to have some trouble on his 
mind." 

" I cannot see what it can be doctor ; he has no 
secrets from me." 

" Well, to minister to a mind diseased is not my 
province. I should recommend you to send for his 
clergyman. Perhaps a talk with him might unbur- 
den your husband's mind and do him good. I don't 
believe in their interference with sick men generally. 
That sort of thing often does more harm than good, 
but in this case I should try it." 

Through the long watches of that night the sick 
man continued in a half conscious delirium, and the 
devoted wife sat behind the curtains of the bed and 
watched his sufferings, unable to give relief. 

In the morning the clergyman came, a sincerely 
pious man, devoted to his labors among the sick. 
The patient was weaker and quieter. He seemed 
somewhat benefitted by the reading and praying of 
the goodman ; but it was rather as a pleasing distrac- 
tion than anything else, until the clergyman, to 
arouse his mind, read the twenty -fifth chapter of 
Matthew. 

When they came to the words, " I was hungry 
and ye gave me food, thirsty and ye gave me drink, 
naked and ye clothed me, &c," he started, fixed his 
eyes intensely upon the reader, and begged a repeti- 
tion of the words ; this done, he sighed deeply and 
asked : 



THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 



" Whom is a man most bound to provide for ; his 
family or others ? " 

" His family, of course," was the reply. u But he 
should not indulge his family in immoderate luxu- 
ries and so prevent himself from giving to the poor 
the necessaries of life." 

" I mean the necessaries of life, bread, clothing, 
and shelter," replied the sick man, speaking with 
terrible earnestness. 

The clergyman gave a glance around the room, 
upon the elegant furniture and the many articles of 
expensive taste, and his looks said plainly that he 
considered that supposition an improbable one. He 
thought the invalid's mind was wandering. 

" No, sir," said the sick man, with a hollow tone. 
" If I die to-day, my family to-morrow will not have 
the right to bread for their hunger, nor to a roof to 
shelter them from the cold and the storm. To pay 
my debts will take everything I have, and my poor 
wife and children will be left homeless and penniless, 
— perhaps friendless." A.nd the invalid sank back 
upon his pillow and pressed his hand to his fore- 
head. 

The minister was surprised at the statement, but 
proceeded to administer the usual consolations ; 
" The Lord will provide. He tempers the winds to 
the shorn lamb. Look at the lilies of the valley, &c. 
The sparrows of the field, &c," and so forth. 



THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 



" Yes, bat the poor lambs suffer for all that. And 
I have seen the lilies crushed by the heavy foot of 
the careless passer-by, and the sparrow dead upon 
the hard frozen ground. And I have seen," sinking 
his voice to a whisper, " the widow and the father- 
less pinched by hunger and the winter's cold, — and 
it has made my heart bleed. But oh, heavens ! I 
never thought my own would drag out a living death 
of that kind. My darling wife, my dear children, 
beggars ! Respectable, starving, beggars ! Will 
they grow strong and hearty by hardships, or will 
they not sink under the rough change ? Will not 
their sensitive natures be crashed by the fearful 
conflict; or, worse, will their hearts not grow cal- 
lous and morose ? " 

Here the clergyman again saw an excellent open- 
ing for scriptural comforts and so immediately re- 
plied : 

" Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth " " Tri- 
bulation worketh patience," and so on. 

" I cannot be comforted by that. I think that 
even if it needs be that these things come, still woe 
unto me by whom they have come. I have been a 
thoughtless, careless, man, led a butterfly existence 
— I could have provided for my family against my 
sudden death by a Life Insurance Policy, but I put 
it off and put it off — I am feeling all the tortures of 
remorse for my unfeeling conduct — and oh, will not 



10 > THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 



my wife and children feel like cursing my name in- 
stead of remembering it with affection. Why, why 
did I not provide for this risk of an early death ! 
Why did not some friend, why did not you tell me 
this was my duty. You preached about death and 
about being good to the poor; but you never warned 
me that the poor might be those of my own house- 
hold. I hear that sentence ringing in my ears : 
" You have not clothed the naked, you have not fed 
the hungry, depart from me ye worker of iniquity !" 
The clergyman insisted, " Sir, it seems that your 
heart still clings, in the hour of death, to the flesh- 
pots of Egypt. Do you not know that riches profit- 
eth nothing." " Blessed be ye poor." " Blessed 
are ye that hunger now." 

The sick man rose it his bed, supporting himself 
with difficulty in a sitting posture by his arms 
braced behind him, and with wasted sunken cheeks 
but eyes glittering with fever he poured forth a tor- 
rent like this : 

" You misapply scripture. It was there meant 
poverty of the spirit, hungering after righteousness. 
I tell you money is one of God's means of doing good. 
Woe to him who squanders his talent. You pray for 
the souls of the heathen ; can you reach their souls 
without elevating their bodies ? Do you christianize 
them unless you first civilize ? Can you make them 
peaceable, virtuous and moral without clothing them, 



THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 11 



feeding them, sheltering them ? When their naked 
bodies are shivering with cold, dripping with rain, 
when they are roaming the forest and the shore, ig- 
norant of where their next meal is to come from, 
when they are living the lives of beasts, must they 
not have the thoughts of beasts ? If my boys are 
bound out to hard work among rough companions 
will their morals be as good as they would be with 
good influences? If they are raised on the street 
will the chances be in favor of their making good 
citizens ? Do rich men's boys steal ? Do rich men's 
daughters become castaways ? Is not intelligence a 
source of virtue ? And how intelligence without ed- 
ucation, and how education without money ? I tell 
you money means education, it means morality, it 
means great and good impulses, it means a noble am- 
bition, it means an open path to virtue. I do not 
speak of riches, but of a decent independence. 
Enough to keep my family together — to help them 
fight the battles of the world with the advantage on 
their side. Now they must be turned adrift to buffet, 
weak and single-handed, with the billows that are 
hard enough to bear with all the aids humanity can 
gather. Oh ! I have sinned against my own flesh 
and blood — Sinned ! — Sinned ! — Sinned !" 

And with a gasp the sick man fell back exhausted, 
and spoke no more. He lay as in a deathly stupor 
till night and then he died. 



12 THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 



The good clergyman quit his bedside in a pro- 
found study. He pondered over a new line of 
thought for days. Here was a practical, real, start- 
lingly real difficulty not mentioned in his books. 
Here was a new duty he had never dreamed of; and 
here was a new remorse for its neglect — a remorse 
terrible enough to shut out all else from a dying 
man's thoughts. 

For days he made no mention of the subject, 
either in conversation or otherwise, — he made no al- 
lusion to it in the funeral sermon. But day and 
night, in long and solitary walks, and in the quiet of 
his study he pondered over the problem. And mean- 
while he watched the family of the deceased until 
he saw the dying prophecy come true. Homeless, 
peuniless, now almost friendless, they were scattered 
to live by bitter drudgery, or still more bitter de- 
pendence. 

The clergyman was an honest man ; he did not 
close his mind to the convincing logic of facts, but 
he followed straight on down the vista of thought 
opened up before him till he had found his own duty, 
and then he fulfilled that duty as it appeared to him. 

He announced on a sabbath morning, two weeks 
afterward that he would lecture that evening on 
"The sin of dying %>oor" 

As may well be imagined his congregation were 
astonished at the topic and the elders thought of re- 



THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 13 



monstrating. Still when evening came the church 
was crowded. 

But those who came to laugh soon became serious. 
Never had the minister conducted the exercises so 
solemnly and impressively. As he stood up to com- 
mence his sermon his countenance was grave and 
pale, and his voice had an intense, earnest, yet fear- 
fully calm tone, that riveted the attention. 

" From the bedside of the dying, from the wrest- 
ling of prayer, from the meditations of the closet, 
from the visits to the alms-house and the homes of 
the poor, I have lately learned a lesson — It is that it 
is a sin to die poor. 

The sin may have its palliations, its excuses in ex- 
ceptional cases, but it still is a wrong against God 
and man. A wrong against man, because it is man's 
duty to the world to leave it better than he found it. 
And to leave it better than he found it he must add 
to the common stock of the world's wealth. For 
the world's wealth represents its civilization, its in- 
telligence, its industry, its energy, its refinement, 
its means of self-improvement, its elevation above 
the savage and the brute. It is its capital, enabling 
it to overcome the obstacles of nature, the weaknesses 
of humanity, the depravity of ignorance, and the 
temptations of poverty. 

"The outcry against money is unjust and unwise. 
It is not money but the inordinate love of it that is 



14 THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 



the root of all evil. Money, itself, as a means, is a 
proper object of pursuit to all, — more, it should give 
a glow of satisfaction to all who possess it, for the 
quantity of it is a measure of one of the dimensions 
of a man's usefulness. 

" Times are changed from two thousand years ago. 
Then brute force ruled the world. Capital, wealth, 
money, were limited, almost unknown and little va- 
lued. Civilization was in a low state, and so the fi- 
nancial question was a trifling one. Men had sim- 
ple habits, and, therefore, their wants were simple, 
and it was just as well so, because their knowledge 
was limited in proportion, and their power likewise. 

" After those times the world progressed, till in- 
ventive force and skill • began to control all else. 
Since then advance has been by long strides till now 
it has become one immense bound after another so 
that we can almost feel the earth tremble beneath 
us. Now, capital is the accumulated force of all the 
labors of past generations. Now, capital draws all 
things else to it and with it. Capital rules the na- 
tions, decides Wars, makes people freemen or slaves, 
wise or ignorant, powerful or weak. Knowledge is 
power, but capital is a greater power, for it controls 
knowledge and makes it its servant. — Do you wish 
to do good ? Are you poor ? Your hands are 
tied.- — Do you wish to protect yourselves from a 
private wrong ? Do you wish to put down a pub- 



THE SHADOW IN THE VALLEY. 15 



lrc evil? Put money in thy purse. So lias God 
willed it, that we must work with his instruments. 
So did Paul mean when he said : ' Be diligent in 
business, 7 " 

Thus the preacher continued, drawing from the 
Bible, history and every-day life, sledge-hammer 
illustrations of his novel pulpit theme. We shall 
not undertake to repeat his sermon in full. The 
effect would be lost without the unusual, almost 
startling solemnity of his tone, showing the depth 
of the new conviction which, after such long strug- 
gles, filled his heart. 

Finally he reached a new branch of the subject. 
He had been speaking of duty to God and to fel- 
low men. Suddenly he dropped his voice to a 
sadder tone, and said : 

k> Above all, beyond all, to die poor is a sin to 
your families. To the helpless children you have 
brought into the world you owe protection, sup- 
port, education and good influences. To the de- 
voted wife whom you have taken when a blooming 
girl and left a helpless mother, with a mother's 
care and a mother's weaknesses, you owe support 
by your marriage vow. Toil, labor, self denial and 
economy of strength may be called for in the task. 
But you owe all these, for. k If a man provide not 
for his own, especially tor those of his own house, 
he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infi- 



del.' Until you are able to build up a reservoir %i 
property which will sustain your families at death, 
your duty is to insure your lives. Do so and you 
will have the sweet consciousness of having done 
your duty. You must do this if it is to be said of 
you, 4 1 have been young and now I am old : yet 
never have I seen the righteous man forsaken, nor 
his seed begging bread.' Your lives will thus be 
made happier and your death-beds sweeter. 

" With the full sense of what I am saying, as 
the fruit of deliberate reflection, I repeat to you, 
my hearers, that Life Insurance is a Christian's 
duty. ' The good man leaveth an inheritance. 
And I know that he who dies with his iamiiy about 
him, leaving no inheritance, will condemn himself 
worse than I can condemn him.' " 

Then he described the death-bed of the dying 
neighbor with all its harrowing remorses. There 
was not a dry eye in the audience. The congrega- 
tion broke up with choking throats, and downcast, 
tearful eyes. As they walked home, husbands 
clasped the hands of their wives, and wives pressed 
the arms of their husbands as they mutually vowed 
to devote themselves thenceforward to a new duty. 



([[itder a |jl 



IX the same street of the same country town, and 
directly opposite *the unfortunate family de- 
scribed in our last paper, there lived another 
family who were a perfect contrast to the former. 

They were as painstaking, economical and serious 
as the others had been gay and extravagant. The 
father was the hardest working man in the neigh- 
borhood, the earliest and latest of all at his trade 
of carpenter, carrying the heaviest timbers and do- 
ing willingly the most dangerous or difficult jobs 
which the others shirked. Mornings and evenings 
he toiled on his little lot, jumping from one task to 
another without taking time to straighten himself 
up, and any summer evening when it was not pitch 
dark the belated passer by could hear his hoe click- 
ing against the stones of his corn or potato patch 
till midnight. His bent back and stiffened knees 
had become a standing joke in the village; but 
that never troubled him, for he never a wasted his 
time loafing in stores or chatting on street corners." 
He had " no time for such follies " ; scarcely time 
even to go to the polls on election days. His calen- 



18 LIFE UNDER A CLOUD. 



dar contained no holidays. And even Sundays was 
an unwelcome break to his labors ; though it cer- 
tainly was no break to the current of his thoughts. 
But Sunday evenings he retired unusually early to 
secure a good start on Monday morning for the all 
important week's labor. 

It was not always so. Time had been when he 
was a universal favorite for his youthful gaiety and 
ready sympathy with the joys and sorrows of those 
aiound him. That was when he was a young man. 
But when he fell in love with a prudent neighbor's 
daughter, and the old folks insisted that they 
should not marry until he had a nice sum of money 
laid by, he and his betrothed resolved to comply 
with the advice. And so he Avent to work in 
earnest. He gave up one after another all his old 
pleasures and bent himself body and soul to the 
task. It took him five years to accomplish it. 

Five long years to the poor girl, who often re- 
pented of the plan. She grew pale and thin, 
changing far faster than the years should have 
changed her. Folks said the courtship had lasted 
over long already ; and so she felt. But the man's 
industry increased with time. Labor, from being 
a means, had become a fixed habit and almost the 
sole purpose of his life. His mind had fed on no- 
thing else for five years, and so it had grown ac- 
cording to the only food it had. He had become 



LIFE UNDER A CLOUD. 19 



a laboring machine and little else. His noble feel- 
ings had been stifled so relentlessly that they seem- 
ed to be smothered out of existence. He seemed 
to live for work ; and he even dreamed of it, when 
he dreamt at all. He toiled as though there was a 
remorseless fiend at his back, lashing him on to re- 
newed operations. You would have said he be- 
lieved that the primeval curse was a blessing, and 
that the Bible ended there. 

They married, — but very privately, to save fool- 
ish expense. And partly for the same reason, part- 
ly because they had lost their taste for society, they 
lived very privately. The old sunny cheerfulness, 
the old fervor of trusting affection were all gone ; 
and all their talk and planning now was about the 
" main chance,'' the being " prudent, saving, econo- 
mical," the " getting on " in life. And as little 
children began to multiply around their melancholy 
fireside, the parents saw new reasons for accumula- 
ting a fortune. And still as the pile increased, 
their desire for more increased and thus they always 
felt poor ; and for all practical purposes they were 
as poor as the most unfortunate of their neighbors. 

The wife drudged from morning to night, in- 
fluenced by the example of her husband, but in a 
listless treadmill sort of a way, as though her heart 
was not in it, nor in any thing else. Her sad eyes 
seemed to say that life had no charms for her. Yet 



20 LIFE UNDER A CLOUD. 



she was unconscious of the fact. She seemed to 
think she was fulfilling life's highest duties. Im- 
perceptibly to herself the hardness of her hands 
had worked inwards towards her heart, till that 
had grown hard too. 

The children were dull, palefaced, serious little 
things, older than their years, perfectly ignorant of 
what play meant. Love for their parents was an 
idea they scarcely knew the meaning of, for the lat- 
ter never took time to show them any affection, nor 
indeed scarcely ever noticed them except to instill 
into their minds some useful lesson of economy and 
premature wisdom, or to severely reprove them for 
some childish carelessness. In fact they scarcely 
ever met their father except at meals, and these 
they eat in hurried solemn silence ; or winter even- 
ings when he would study the market reports, and 
deaths from the weekly paper, and fall asleep trying 
to read something else. 

Still their parents were proud of them. They 
stood highest in their classes at school, and did not 
tear or soil their clothes like the " shiftless children 
over the way." They were advised not to associate 
with these latter, but the advice was unnecessary, 
for the two families could no more mix than oil 
and water. 

The mother would at rare intervals find time to 
make a formal call upon some of the neighbors 



LIFE UNDER A CLOUD. . .... 21 



whom she named " sensible people." But it was 
her particular recreation to attend all the funerals 
of the neighborhood, and often she would come 
back and say to her husband that the bereaved fa- 
mily would " have to come down now in their pride, 
and go to work like other people." 

Sometimes she would congratulate herself that 
her children would reap the reward of all their 
efforts some day and be looked up to with respect 
by the " spendthrifts " opposite, who, she said, u put 
all they had on their backs, and then turned up their 
noses at their neighbors." 

" Our children," she used to say to herself, " will 
not be kept with their noses to the grindstone as we 
have been." She little thought that the chances 
were ten to one that having been taught to grub so 
long they would never be anything else but grubbers 
all their lives, unless perhaps a very probable reac- 
tion should make them reckless and dissolute. 

Fortunately for them and their parents, the invest- 
ment in which three-fourths of the family savings 
were placed, and which had been always considered 
as safe as it was profitable, about this time failed 
from over speculation and a depression in business, 
Added to which the oldest child showed symptoms 
of softening of the brain, from over study at too 
youthful an age, and the father was rendered unfit 
for work by severe dyspepsia, which caused his mind 
to magnify all his misfortunes. 



22 LIFE UNDER A CLOUD. 



A temporary business shock would not have dis- 
turbed that iron heart ; it would soon have been for- 
gotten in the absorbing cares of a busy life. Death 
itself would have had no terrors for his mind, for he 
would have met it unflinching^ in the proud con- 
viction that he had done his duty and would leave 
his family provided for. But when a lingering dis- 
ease took away his heart's idol — work — when he 
was forced in spite of himself to move around the 
place and the town doing nothing, when he was con- 
demned for the first time in many years to think, 
then his mental powers began to free themselves 
from the fetters they had worn so long. 

One morning he noticed the listless dull air of his 
children, as they crept fearfully to the table and si- 
lently off to school ; he watched them as they sat at 
night poring over their books, their minds evidently 
,w wool gathering " over their tedious task ; he went 
up stairs and stood by their beds, and looked at 
their thin colorless faces as they slept, and a tear 
dropped from his eye for the first time for years. He 
retired slowly and thoughtfully down stairs, put 
their books and slates into the fire and walked out 
to the store to come back with his arms full of all 
the playthings he could find. 

Then he went to work to teach his children how 
to play, how to fish, to boat, to climb, to gather 
flowers and nuts, and to use a fowling piece. He 



LIFE UNDER A CLOUD. 23 



went back to where he had left off in his old boyish 
days and became young again for their sakes, not 
knowing that he was learning as much from them as 
they from him. When the summer and autumn had 
passed, he found his children hearty and rugged as 
they never had been before ; and himself, to his sur- 
prise, a well man again. 

He went to work with great reluctance. His wife 
was astonished that he often took holidays now to 
make excursions with the children or to take the 
whole family on visits to their friends. Books and 
papers made their appearance at the house ; reading, 
games, children's gatherings, pleasant chats with the 
neighbors occupied every evening, and cheerful con- 
versation and ready smiles, and a warm interest in 
all the concerns of the family and of the village 
marked every idle moment of the day. The glow 
returned to the cheeks of the wife, and one day she 
said to the husband. 

" Tell me, how is it everything is so different. 
Now you find time to look after other people's inter- 
est and happiness, and your mind is no longer 
wrapped up in your own business matters. And, 
oh, we are all so much happier than we used to be ! 
But what has changed your views V Are your chil- 
dren provided for in case of your death ? You seem 
to love them more than ever, and I know you cannot 
have forgotten them ! " 



24 LIFE UNDER A CLOUD. 



" I have forgotten nothing," was the reply. " But 
I have learned that we have all been leading a mis- 
taken life. While I live I can support you all com- 
fortably. The only fear that haunted me day and 
night, that drove me on to make a slave of myself 
and slaves of the whole family, was the dread of my 
sudden death, which might leave you unprovided 
for. But I have lately learned a better way, a way 
that would have made us all happier in days gone 
by if I had known it sooner. Henceforward I shall 
live like a man and no longer like a beast of burden. 
Can you not guess the secret of it ? Here it is — 
he went to his desk and drew out A Life Insurance 
Policy. 



COMPARATIVE LIST 



Assets and Death Losses. 



The following table proves how the Standard is in 
advance of almost all other companies in two most 
important points of all connected with Life Insu- 
rance. That is, its Losses are less in proportion and 
its Assets are greater; thus making insurance in it 
the cheapest and the safest. 





Ratio of 


Ratio of 




Losses in 1869 


Assets 




to mean 


to 




Amount at Eisk. 


Liabilities. 


STANDARD, 


0.54 


205 


iEtna 


. 0.94 


128 


American, . 


1.22 


135 


Atlas, St. Louis, . 


0.72 


150 


Berkshire, 


0.76 


113 


Brooklyn, 


0.73 


114 


Charter Oak, 


1.03 


126 


Connecticut Mut. . 


0.93 


155 


Continental. H*d, 


0.78 


161 


Economical. . 


0.93 


148 


Equitable. 


0.96 


100-120 


Excelsior, 


0.58 


154 


Germania, . 


1.05 


127 


Globe, . 


0.67 


113 


Guardian, . 


0.99 


121 


Hahnemann, . 


0.65 


167 


Home, 


0.85 


119 



26 COMPARATIVE ASSETS AND LOSSES. 




John Hancock, 


1.01 


121 


Knickerbocker, 


1.23 


125 


Manhattan, . 


0.98 


142 


Massachusetts . . * 


1.05 


111 


Mutual, N. Y, 


89 


100-120 


Mutual Benefit, . 


0.96 


121 


Mut. Protection, . 


1.02 


100-120 


National Vt. 


0.87 


151 


N. England Mut. . 


1.03 


107 


M. Jersey Mut. . 


1.04 


142 


New York, .... 


0.80 


122 


North American, 


0.97 


113 


North Western, 


0.79 


117 


Penn. Mutual, . 


0.85 


111 


Phcenix, . . 


58 


100-120 


Provident, 


0.69 


159 


Security, 


0.63 


118 


State Mutual of Worcester, . 


1.10 


117 


St. Louis, . . • 


1.27 


106 


Travelers, . 


0.86 


182 


Union Mutual of Maine, 


0.70 


127 


United States, 


1.22 


140 


Universal, 


0.74 


138 


Washington, 


0.71 


112 


Wid's and Orphans, 


0.93 


123 


World, .... 


0.78 


169 


Piedmont and Arlington. 


60 


138 



§caril of intsfoo. 



Hon. E. D. MORGAN, U. S. Senator. 

Hon GEO. OPDYKE. late Mayor of the City of N. Y., President. 

GOUYR. M. WELKINS, Castle Hill. Westchester. 

LE GRAND LOCKWOOD. Lockwoocl & Co.. Bankers. 

F. A. PALMER, President of Broadway National Bank. 

WM. H. GOON. Williams & Guion. 

J. B. CORNELL. J. B. & W. W. Cornell. 

RICHARD LATHERS. President Great Western Ins. Co. 

E. H. LUDLOW. E. H. Ludlow & Co 

HEXRY M. TABER. C. C. & H. M. Taber 

I. VAN ANDEN. Proprietor Brooklyn Easrle. 

WM. PEET. Miller. Peet & Opdyke. 

JAMES L. DAWES. Vice-President. 

JNO. G. MEIGGS, Merchant. 

S. T. SCRANTON, President Oxford Iron Co. 

C. ASHWORTH. Banker. 

Hon. THEO. F. RANDOLPH. Governor of New Jersey 

THOMAS INGHAM. Metal Merchant. 

WILSON G. HUNT, late W. G. Hunt & Co. 

EUGENE KELLY, Eugene Kelly & Co. 

JAMES C. HOLDEN, Iron Merchant. 

TREDWELL KETCHAM, Banker. 

BENJ. H. FLELD. 

A. BRAYTON BALL. M. D. 



THE STANDARD 



Life Insurance Company, 



202 BR< 



NEW YORK. 



-g ^ - < » <S5> *fr- & *- 



President : Vice-President : 

GEORGE OPDYKE. JAMES L. DAWES. 

Secretary and Actuary : 
CHARLES W. OPDYKE. 

Ass't Secretary: 
WM. A, GUILDS. 

^X^l Medical Examiner : 

A. BRAYTOJST BALL, M. D. 



f ui\ely Mutual, ^ll Profits to Policy 

j^OLDEF^S. 



No Injustice to the Insured in case of 
Non-Payment of Premiums. 



ASSETS DOUBLE ITS LIABILITIES. 



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